When you wish apon a star
by AnneAquila
Summary: It's a bitterly cold night in midwinter. Scorpius is in the astronomy tower pondering over his problems. his problems vanish when an unexpected person joins him in his stargazing.


Hey folks, it's Aquila here again, with a brand new scorose fic for all of you. I hope it is up to all your expectations. Oh, and could you please review my sequel I've uploaded for my story, the rose and the yew tree? I'd really appreciate it. This is a story I've written for my bestest best buddy in the world, Anne.

Scorpius hurried up the winding staircase to the astronomy tower. He arrived at the huge oaken doors and stopped, catching his breath. He glanced around furtively, before pushing them open and stepping outside.

It was midwinter, and the darkest day of the year – the 23rd of December, the winter solstice. The biting north wind mercilessly knifed Scorpius' cheek and stung his eyes. The bitter cold sank right into the marrow of his bones. His fingers and toes were benumbed already, despite wearing three pairs of thermal socks and hand warmers. Inky darkness surrounded him like a cloak.

Meteorology had deceived him again. In the morning, it had been fairly chilly with a hint of sleet. The watery, pale sun had risen, and had promptly disappeared at 4:30 to give way to an intense arctic blizzard.

Now, the crisp snow laid several metres thick on the ground. The sky was clear except for a few scurrying clouds. The turreted walls were covered in sheets of frost. The bleak, glacial grounds of Hogwarts would definitely do grave injustice to the hyperborean climate of the South Pole.

And yet, Scorpius had decided to come up here – for what?

Stargazing.

Call it astronomy if you will, but the one unexpected thing that Scorpius was passionate about was staring at a cloudless sky during the witching hours.

He certainly didn't dream of becoming the next Galileo Galili or Alexander Ptolemy – to discover new moons or give weird Latin names to constellations or some other confounded invention. Stargazing relaxed him, calmed him down and generally made him forget about everyday problems – like life in general.

The one problem that was recently bothering him now was a certain girl, whose name he won't mention. Although, he can say that she is jaw – droppingly beautiful, with tumbling crimson locks and breathtaking eyes the colour of his mother's special hot mocha and...honestly speaking, Scorpius could go on and on and on.

Scorpius sighed. He really had got it bad. Cupid had certainly found his mark this time.

The door slowly creaked open.

Scorpius sat up bolt upright and was about to ask who on earth in their right minds would be up here at midnight on winter solstice with the threat of upcoming fatal frostbite. (Technically speaking, that would classify himself as insane, but we'll dwell on that later.)

"Would you mind if I join you?"

Scorpius would know that voice anywhere.

"Rose!?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Well, would you look at that. Scorpius had come up here to escape his problems, and the fates had decided that shoving said girl in his face would help him solve it.

Speak of the devil.

Rose dropped down next to him. Scorpius decided to say something against his better will.

"What are you doing up here anyway?"

"Stress tantrum. I was breaking my head over all the pressure for our upcoming exams. Needed to cool off. Thought that the bracing, nippy winter air would calm me down. Didn't know you'd be up here though. Do you get stress dilemmas too?"

"Nah, I'm a regular visitor. I just have an unhealthy obsession with staring at stars. Speaking of stars, you see that shimmery ribbon up there? That's the milky way."

Oh."

"That constellation over there is Orion. You can spot him by the distinct 3 roughly equidistant stars of his belt. The blue one in the middle is Rigel, or Beta Orionis. It's a relatively cool, B type star. The brightest one in the constellation. The group of stars south west of that is eridanus, the river."

"That one over there is canis major or the great dog. There are only two distinct stars we can see. One is your uncle Harry's godfather Sirius, the brightest star. The one next to that is canis majoris. It's like, super huge, almost 80,000 times as large as the sun."

"That huge group of stars over there is Draco the dragon, my dad. The one next to it is me, Scorpius. You can see all the stings in my prickly tail."

Rose laughed.

"The faint red blob you see over there is Jupiter. Most people mistake it for Aldebaran, the brightest star of the zodiac constellation Taurus. But Aldebaran burns with a lower intensity and is always aligned with the star group called the Pleiades or the seven sisters. In fact, Aldebaran literally translates into 'the follower' in Arabic as it always follows the seven sisters."

"That faint constellation you can see over there is Lyra, the harp of Apollo. That really bright star is Alpha Vega, the third brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere after Sirius and arcturus."

"And that really pretty gold dot over there is the heavenly planet, Venus – the roman goddess of love."

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Rose.

Oh gods.

He had totally forgotten that she was sitting over there. He felt like a moron. He had probably bored her to death with his boring monologue on stars, which she probably knew about already. Heck, this was Rose Weasly he was talking about.

"Shit, I'm really sorry Rose. I didn't mean to launch into that terrible explanation. I'm –"

"It's okay. I really enjoyed it. I didn't know you were that interested in stars. I probably don't need to read up for that gods awful astronomy test tomorrow. And it was really cute when you started talking. I mean, your eyes lit up like those stars you were talking about, and you got all passionate and stuff... gods, I think I should stop now."Rose trailed off, mortified.

"Hey, it's okay. And it's really gratifying to know that at least someone thinks I'm cute."

Rose laughed that beautiful laugh that sounded like the sweet tinkling of bells.

"You want to know what my favourite stars are?"

"Oh yeah?"

"The ones in your eyes."

And with that, Scorpius swooped Rose in for a kiss.

The planet Venus twinkled and sparkled over their heads in the frosty winter air.

I know that this is a tad too focused on astronomical details, but it really helped me create the main essence of the whole story. I hope you folks enjoyed it!

Signing off,

Aquila Estravadös


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